A constitutional crisis becomes especially dangerous when a president of the United States tells the public it cannot trust the government of the United States.

Over the last few weeks, Trump has done just this.

First he accuses the FBI of sending a spy to secretly infiltrate his 2016 campaign “for political purposes.” Then he “demands” that the FBI investigate the spying – resulting in the Justice Department sharing portions of the FBI investigation with Trump’s allies in Congress.

Trump blames the entire Mueller investigation on a conspiratorial “deep state” intent on removing him from office. He uses pardons to demonstrate to those already being investigated that they shouldn’t cooperate because he can pardon them, too.

He claims he has the absolute right to pardon himself and can thereby immunize himself from any outcome; and asserts he has the power under the Constitution to end the investigation whenever he wants.

The constitutional crisis worsens every time Trump berates judges who disagree with him, attacks intelligence agencies that won’t do his bidding, and calls journalists and news organizations that criticize him “enemies of the people,” and their reporting, “fake news.”

It deepens when he avoids news conferences and instead communicates with his followers through tweets and rallies.

And when he treats Americans who didn’t vote for him or who disapprove of him as his personal opponents, rather than as citizens to whom he is as constitutionally accountable as to his most loyal supporters.

It intensifies when he uses the presidency as a personal fiefdom to enrich himself and his family; unilaterally breaks treaties and starts trade wars with long-standing allies; and expresses admiration for some of the most murderous dictators in the world.

The crux of America’s current constitutional crisis is this: Our system of government was designed to constrain power, but Trump doesn’t want his power to be constrained.

Our system was conceived as a means of promoting the public interest, but Trump wants to promote only his own interest.

Our system was organized to bind presidents to the Constitution, but Trump doesn’t want to be bound by anything.

The crisis will therefore worsen as long as Trump can get away with it. A megalomaniac unconstrained by countervailing power becomes only more maniacal. He will fill whatever political void exists with his unbridled ego.

The only legal way to constrain Trump is to vote for a Congress this November that will stand up to him. And then, in November 2020, vote him and his regime out of office.

If he refuses to accept the results of that election, as he threatened to do if he lost the 2016 election, he will have to be forcefully removed from office.

Friends, we are no longer trying to avert a constitutional crisis. We are living one. The question is how to stop it from destroying what’s left of our democracy.

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Robert Reich

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.

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